On Mon, Dec 13, 2010 at 2:52 AM, Marc Villemade <[email protected]> wrote: > > On Dec 11, 2010, at 5:34 PM, Rudi Ahlers wrote: > >> On Sat, Dec 11, 2010 at 6:27 PM, Joe Landman >> <[email protected]> wrote: >>> On 12/11/2010 11:17 AM, Rudi Ahlers wrote: > >>> [..] >>> >>> -- >> >> >> True, I fully agree with you on that point. I myself don't like vendor >> lock-ins. But, I do like the simplicity that off-the-shelf NAS devices >> offer, as apposed to a DIY one. And they often offer more tools than a >> normal Linux box with iSCSI as well. >> > > hi all, > > [Disclaimer: I work for Scality] > > Rudi, first and foremost, i think you have to pinpoint the main > characteristic you want to improve on your system. It sounds like it is > scalablity. Beyond NAS, there is an array (no pun intended) of choices for > you to consider (scale-out NAS, SANs, clustered file system, dispersed > storage ...). > But to figure out the best system for you, one needs to take a hard look at > the kind of data you're storing and at the access patterns and requirements > for those. > > For large systems (meaning > 100 TB and/or lots of files (of whichever > size)), getting rid of the filesystem layer is sometimes very efficient. > Hence, one should think about Object Storage as a solution. They bring > high-reliability and durability (through self-replication, self-healing) with > cost-efficiency using commodity hardware. It is the technology used by lots > of public cloud vendors to offer their service for cheap and still be > profitable. Those guys inherently need to be able to scale almost infinitely > (look at Amazon or Rackspace). > > If you are dealing with unstructured data as opposed to a relational database > for example; if there are millions and millions of objects that you need to > access quickly, object storage might be for you. > > Rudi, what do you actually store ? for what kind of service is the storage > layer used ? Are you storing emails/backups or hosting your employees' file > sharing service ? Basically, if you're storing any kind of data which size > you know is likely to grow massively and you want to be able to: > 1 - allow it > 2 - afford it > 3 - operate it at the lowest possible cost > , then i would strongly suggest you look into object storage technology > (there are a couple of opensource options as well as vendor solutions). > > At scality, we have developed such an object store which scales smoothly up > to petabytes with off-the shelf servers logically brought together in a ring. > While other solutions' performance usually degrade with time, our performance > is similar to a high-end SAN from the start and stays roughly the same as we > scale up to petabytes. > > We gracefully scale in capacity and performance by just adding nodes to the > system (without service interruption), so we're never limited by a box design > (either in maximum nb of drives or by network capacity). > > If you feel like you could use object storage to store your data, please have > a look at our technology and get in touch - http://bit.ly/fY6eMm > > Happy Holidays ! > > -Marc Villemade > http://linkd.in/heve30 > >
Thanx, It's the first time I hear of the term "Object Storage". In all honest, from a technical view point, how does this differ from NAS / SAN's? -- Kind Regards Rudi Ahlers SoftDux Website: http://www.SoftDux.com Technical Blog: http://Blog.SoftDux.com Office: 087 805 9573 Cell: 082 554 7532 _______________________________________________ Gluster-users mailing list [email protected] http://gluster.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/gluster-users
